A coworker broke down near my house on a weekend. He called me for help since he knew I was nearby. I had been doing house projects, so was in athletic shorts, hair bundled out of the way, sunscreen, everything for function and comfort over fashion. He had the audacity to comment. MFer. I dropped him at a gas station to wait for his girlfriend or whatever. Hopefully she made him wait a really long time while she got dressed up to meet his unnecessary standards. Never know when one might need a little black dress and updo to change a tire.

What has changed over the years is my awareness of shitty men being shitty and my shortening patience with their shittiness. The dude described above was just a shithead, I am not spending my energy pondering his behavior through the lens of Male Gaze.

Male Gaze is separate from quality of dating pool. I generally think of Male Gaze as broader cultural trends in how women are portrayed, not how an individual man looks at me. Male Gaze is different than “how that one male over there is gazing at me”. I don’t get what you’re driving at with that section of the question.